Solotandem,
If i remove the coder module files, everything works. If I put them back, it does not. This is a local server, only accessing from the machine the server is on, so Firewall is not a problem.

Let's explore, "I have made sure I am meeting all of the dependencies of the module, still no difference." What are the dependencies you have met? Be specific, possibly include a screen shot of the modules page for the coder related modules. Does your web server have write access to appropriate files directories?

Do a web search on "[notice] Parent: child process exited with status 255 -- Restarting". You will find some interesting stuff related to WAMP. Things like out of memory, PDO issues, etc.

If you don't find something quickly, you could try outputting more debug information from Apache to see if it will tell you what is causing the restart.

You claim, "Once i upload the files, the site breaks, before I am even able to enable it." This, again, does not suggest a problem with Coder (it is not even enabled so Drupal should not be invoking any of its code).

Changing issue status until you can provide definitive evidence that Coder is the cause.

solotandem:
I will attempt the Google search you specified.
The reason that I am fairly sure it is coder, is if I place the files in the modules directory, bam, site broken. If i remove the files from the module directory, site fixed.
I am able to add other modules just fine.

By trial and error (deleting files, then commenting out parts of the offending file) I managed to narrow it down to.... (drumroll)... the length of the description in coder_upgrade.info, but only if it is wrapped in double quotes!

Here are all my findings, they are bizarre...

* Removing the double quotes, works
* Keeping the double quotes but concatenating the three description lines into one, works
* REDUCING the length of the double quotes description to under 190 bytes, WORKS

It's the weirdest thing... I edited the .info file of a random module adding words to the description field. If number of bytes of the description inside the quotes is 189 or less... it works. Adding a single letter breaks the modules page. Again, removing the double quotes unbreaks it.

My guess is that it's something about how WAMP configures apache or php, but this is out of my area of expertise. If anyone else has some input, please share.

If this is the case, we probably should consider giving notice in the writing .info files page (http://drupal.org/node/542202) where it says "Quoted values may contain newlines."

odegard, thank you for sharing your solution. We experienced the same "The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading" issue on all admin pages immediately after downloading Mass Contact module to local WAMP server. Editing the .info file to reduce the description to a single line immediately fixed the problem. Again, many thanks.

If this is a known issue and we have the solution, why isn't fixed? You might say it's a WAMP problem but how many people use WAMP? I'll tell you, a lot of people. Do you really want every person who uses WAMP to get their site broken just by copying it in the modules folder? You know what the problem is, just fix it.